Comments? Later!

I meant to post something here about how to add comments to your photographs using your D700... but I just packed it already, and feel kinda lazy to get it out of the bag. After all, we're leaving for Washington DC very soon!

Which leads me to think about travel photography.

Good experiences? Bad experiences?

The one above and all below are from Philadelphia. Chairs (50mm f1.4) from a French restaurant.

The market, when the cookies are half price... (AF-S 24-70 f2.8)

A view of a street parallel to Chestnut. There are two hotels facing each other on the preceding block (a Hilton and a very traditional Philadelphia place, whose name I cannot recall). Needless to say, that's the end of Broadway street in front of us. And a nice building to boot!

Never had a problem with anyone. Of course, I was also pushing Edmund's stroller (with him in it), so that makes a great cover for someone wishing to shoot street... views.

Again, what experiences do you have about photographing on a trip? Oddly enough, whenever I've taken my Nikons, people take me for a photojournalist. With other cameras... I'm simply ignored.

Do people give you grief? Or do you give people grief? Let's hear about it!

Having some fun

Here are some photos, just for the sake of posting. Later, I'll get into adding comments to them.

DeKalb, Snowy Classics

We thought we were done with winter, but there was a last kick in February. Then, the sun came...Sunny Classics

Finally, people broke out of their homes and into the streets: summer has come!

Time to take a peek at life's little treasures...

So that's all for today, folks!

In-Camera color editing

Can be done!

Here, take a peek...

Photograph with my trusty AF-S 24-70, WB at 2500ºK, set with the WB in camera. Cannot recall the ISO, but must have been nicely high (like 3000 or so).

Exact same photograph, but with the color cast corrected... in the body! No PS used in either shot.

Now, let's get to the procedure.

Here I would post photographs of my camera menus and you'd be able to see them just as I do, but since I only have ONE functional digital camera (the other, a small Panasonic, was purchased only to photograph eBay bait), my dear readers will have to contend with my prose.

• Now, turn on your camera.
  
• Push the Menu button.
• Go to the Retouch Menu.
• Select "Color Balance" and then click OK.
• The camera will take you to your shots, stored in the card.
• Select the one with a cast problem.
  
• Click OK and you will see a screen showing the preview on the top right, with a quadrant and a pointer in the lower right side of the screen. You can move the pointer 0r cursor with the multidirectional button or with your commands; at the same time you move the cursor over a color area, you can see the changes this makes on the photograph (however small the view). Once you have reached the tone you can live with, click OK again...

Presto!

Another way is to view the photo in your screen, and click OK. This will take you to a menu that includes D-Lighting, Red-Eye Correction, Trim, Monochrome, Filter Effects and Color Correction. Select Color Correction, and it'll take you to the screen with the color quadrant and the image preview.

Try it... and move it to your personal list of most-often used functions, aka "My Menu." Once you've done it often enough, you won't need to correct color in PS again... or at least you won't have to wait until downloading it.

Things one does with a 50mm lens

Here are some samples... with a 50mm f1.4 lens, not always wide open.

Restaurant in Philadelphia, at night.

Mimi, looking out the window.

One chair from our backyard, covered in snow.

It's been a while

It has been a while since my last post... and in that time, we celebrated Christmas with Edmund, the three of us went to Philadelphia in business (got some shots), and even got some additional toys to play with: a nice Nikon AF 50mm f1.4 lens.

Some results of that lens (among other toys) below.

For instance, I'm not really crazy about the OOF renderings here. Granted, they're great, but I think I got into a much larger problem than with any f2.8 lens. See these things:

First comes a cake (California citrus cake, for those who may care; it's essentially a pound cake) end, photographed with my new AF 50mm f1.4 lens, wide open.

Below, the same cake and almost the same composition, with the trusty AF-S 24-70 f2.8, at f2.8

Is there a difference?

To me, yes: it's in the detail of the cake texture. These shots are not, BTW, sharpened or manipulated at all. In fact, I didn't even resize them. At this point, I'm on the fence about this lens... probably because I bought it for the rare ocassions in which an f2.8 won't suffice.

Like this one below... also done with the 50mm lens.

The focus is on the end of the arm, that circular, capricious, metallic image of a curl. The back of the bench is already blurred, and the background... irrecognizable.

After thinking about it for a while, and comparing other (irrelevant) shots, I came to the conclusion that bokeh is an acquired taste. I do have it, but not yet that ever present, or at the expense of a certain amount of sharpness. In fact, I now believe that this lens really shines at f1.8 more than fully open... but, you know what? I'll keep it.

More on toys later. At least, as I reported earlier, my AF-ED 80-2oo f2.8 came back home, like new, from the folks at Authorized Photo Service in Morton Grove, IL. I even got the silly request for a name plate replacement (mine had lost it). They were able to find one, and now the lens looks (and works) better than ever.

So long!

New Toy, New Experiences

News that occur... Things one discovers... Like the limits of an almost $3000 camera. Take a peek at the two shots below...

This one above was taken at night, at ISO 6400. It's the Cole Hall Memorial, to commemorate the five NIU students shot in February 14, 2008. The one below, however, shows an artifact in the middle of the building; that's what happens when you push the limits of the sensor.

If you can, look at the building in the middle: there is a faint line there, slightly below the row of lit windows. What is it? "Normal" reaction to high contrasts at high ISO. Go figure. At least, the camera isn't in need of repair.

Now... the good stuff.

There's a new toy in town, a Nikon AF 70-210 f4-5.6. It's a non-D lens, and you can see it here, attached to my F100. As far a lenses is concerned, it's small, compact and practical. In fact, I think it's sharp enough to do the job of bringing stuff closer. However, it is noisy and the AF isn't as fast as if it were an f2.8. One might wonder what's the use of getting a lens like this... and, to be quite honest, the price was sooooo reasonable it would have been foolish to pass.

Now, the day I was out "testing" my new toy (and I do have some photos with it, but will post them later), I saw this stand-off in the yard: Mimi chased a squirrel and forced it to go up the tree. And Ben? He was just supervising her.

Now... the last and best: Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Price 1992, came to campus in Sept 23, 2009. My wife and I were both invited to a small reception and, since we couldn't find a baby sitter, my wife, wisely, resolved to take our son Edmund with. Here he is, meeting a Nobel Prize at his ripe 4 months of age.

Wasn't this some week? More on other things (like my AF ED 80-200 f2.8 zoom's return home) next time!

Objects, details

Can be so much fun... The point, or my goal, is to isolate them, detach them from what they "belong" and turn them loose into the world of meanings. What do they mean or suggest? Hmmm...
Parts, sections, elements, fraction, function... the list goes on.

So many parts, sections and details. So many functions and uses, and yet, so human all of them, as they are vaguely connected to the part of our body we operate them with. Otherwise, how to explain the thin metallic cord of the lamp above, or the firm handle of the train seat. Heck, how do we explain the whole in the center of the table all the way above, without our getting used to this furniture?

BTW, two of these items are in DeKalb. You can guess which.

'til the next one!